


We’re going to be beautiful, Harry

by Apuzzlingprince



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Soul Mate AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-07
Updated: 2016-06-07
Packaged: 2018-07-13 00:15:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7130459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Apuzzlingprince/pseuds/Apuzzlingprince
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every wizard had a soul mark. Some were large, spanning the length of ones body, and some were small enough to fit inside a palm or behind an ear. Of course, by all accounts, Harry Potter was not ‘every wizard’.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We’re going to be beautiful, Harry

Every wizard had a soul mark. Some were large, spanning the length of ones body, and some were small enough to fit inside a palm or behind an ear. Of course, by all accounts, Harry Potter was not ‘every wizard’. He was an anomaly; he should have died when Voldemort cast the killing curse and a soul mark should have blossomed on his skin on his third birthday, but neither of these things had happened. Instead of a soul mark, he had a scar. A small, lightening shaped one that stretched over his left eyebrow and had once been the only thing he liked about himself. Now it was a source of shame and trepidation. 

Every other student at Hogwarts had beautiful markings. Draco Malfoy had a small series of green snakes proudly displayed on his pale neck. Ron’s was the skeleton of a tree, its silver limbs encompassing the whole of his back. He could have sworn he saw a branch reaching out from beneath Hermione’s shirt, once, but that could have just as easily been his imagination. Dumbledore presented his mark to Harry the night he was discovered with the mirror of Erised, and it was a half-moon surrounded by stars that shimmered gold in the moonlight. The person who had bore its duplicate was no longer among them, he had told Harry, and Harry felt a surge of sympathy that eventually evolved into relief; this was the first indication he’d been given that soul marks weren’t the be-all and end-all to love.

Draco Malfoy never missed an opportunity to mock Harry for the absence of a soul mark, but by the end of his first year, Harry couldn’t find it within himself to care. He had Voldemort to worry about; why should he let something as trivial as who he would one day marry and have babies with trouble him? He was only eleven. He had plenty of time to find someone who would want to be with him regardless of his lack of soul mark.

Ginny Weasley, whose soul mark was a red rose as luminescent as the sun, started to pursue him in his second year, and whether she intended to or not, she provided reassurance to Harry that having no soul mark didn’t mean no one would ever express romantic inclinations for him. Now that he knew what being the recipient of romantic inclinations felt like, he couldn’t say he enjoyed it all that much. Why would anyone voluntarily put themselves through the humiliation? He didn’t understand, and he was glad having no soul mate meant he would never need to.

The topic of soul marks was quickly overrun by fearful murmurs of ‘monsters’ and ‘the heir of Slytherin’ when students started to turn up petrified. For the first time since being enrolled at Hogwarts, Harry wished they would talk about his lack of soul mark instead. Anything was better than overhearing students discussing his heritage in conspiratorial whispers, as though he would turn on them if he heard them speaking about him. Considering he had saved everyone last year by preventing Voldemort from accessing the Philosophers Stone, he felt rightly bitter and angry. This bitterness was only exacerbated when he, himself, started wondering if he was some great, great, great, great grandchild of Salazar Slytherin. The only one who didn’t seem to think he was the heir was Draco Malfoy, and that wasn’t saying much.

All his anger and frustration was brought to a halt when Ron’s sister went missing. It was Harry who was tasked with finding her, and find her he did, lying in the middle of the Chamber of Secrets with her bright red hair fanned around her head like a rustic halo. He immediately went to her side.

Her skin was as pale as marble and as cold as ice. He pressed his fingers to her neck, like he had seen doctors do in movies, and tried to locate a pulse. The flesh beneath his fingers was inert. 

“No.” The word was involuntarily spoken, choked and full of horror. He couldn’t be too late. Ginny couldn’t be dead. Ron was waiting for him just beyond the heart of the chamber, waiting for him to emerge from the rubble with his sister. “No,” he choked out again, trembling fingers reaching for the opposite side of her neck. He knew exactly where to feel, now, because he could feel his own pulse throbbing in his throat. “Ginny, please wake up–“

And then he paused, because in the reflection of a puddle of water he could see a tall, dark figure peering at him. He turned his head and was greeted with the sight of Tom Riddle.

“She won’t wake,” he said softly. Harry found himself unwillingly calmed by the dulcet tones of Tom’s voice.

“Tom? Tom Riddle?”

Riddle nodded, his dark eyes lingering on Harry’s face. There was something strange in them, something dark and hungry that made Harry swallow, his throat bobbing.

“What d’you mean, she won’t wake?” In an effort to prove him wrong, he gave her body a shake. She didn’t stir. Her body was still and pliable, feeling like a doll beneath his shaking hands. “She can’t be dead!”

Tom slowly approached. His footsteps echoed throughout the chamber. “She is, Harry. You’re too late.”

“No,” he said again, his voice cracking. “No, that’s can’t be true! I came here to save her, if you just help me get her to Dumbledore-“

“Even Dumbledore can’t raise the dead.” Tom came to a stop in front of him, slowly dropping to his knees. When Harry tried offering him one of Ginny’s arms so they could get moving, escape the chamber, he made no move to accept it. He merely stared at Harry, the slightest hint of a smile playing on his pale lips.

“Tom, please! Please just help me,” he was nigh begging now. “We- we have to try, okay? Even if she’s- we have to!”

Tom reached over and gently pried Harry’s hand out of Ginny’s shirt, making soft, hushing sounds, and Harry felt his face warm with the urge to cry. 

“It’s alright,” Tom said, holding his hand in a way that could easily be interpreted as comforting. “Her family will still have access to their daughter. She was an exchange, you see.” He reached into the folds of his robes, withdrawing Tom Riddle’s diary. As Tom Riddle himself was kneeling before him, touching him, he shouldn’t have been surprised to see the diary, but his eyes still widened at the sight of it. Without a thought as to what might be inside, he opened it.

_Hello? Mum? Dad? …Tom? Where am I? It’s so dark. I can’t feel my hands. I can’t feel anything. Is anyone there? Please help me! Please, I’m scared! Where am I?_

“It’s thanks to her that I have a human vessel,” said Tom, his voice sounding like a distant buzzing in Harry’s ears. This was, somehow, worse than Ginny being dead. As he watched Ginny’s terrified scrawl overlap in her desperation to be heard, it was an effort not to vomit. “We can be together now, Harry,” whispered Tom.

Those words penetrated the haze that had enveloped his mind. Jerking upright, he tried to yank his hand out of Tom’s and found those long, nimble fingers wound tight around his knuckles.

“What do you mean, ‘together’?” he spluttered. “I don’t want anything to do with _you_! You as good as killed her!” 

“Oh? But we’re _meant_ to be together, Harry.” With his free hand, Tom grabbed the sleeve of his robes and drew it back, tucking it into the crook of his elbow. There was a long, puckered scar enveloping his forearm, in the shape of a lightning bolt. Harry felt his mouth go dry.

“We’re soul mates.” When Tom leaned towards him, Harry tried to withdraw. He didn’t manage to get far; Tom was far larger and far stronger than him. “My elder self may have chosen to deny our connection…” Perhaps because of Harry’s age, Tom didn’t press a kiss to his mouth; he instead smoothed his lips over Harry’s forehead, directly over his scar. His breath was warm against Harry’s skin. “But _I_ couldn’t be more pleased with who was chosen as my soul mate. Harry Potter, the boy who lived, the one who defeated me… mine.” As he withdrew, there was a flash of red in his dark irises. “ _Mine_.”

Harry gaped at him. 

“Elder self…?”

_This can’t be happening_ , Harry thought to himself, and even in his mind his voice was a high, horrified whisper. _This can’t be happening to me._

And then Tom drew out a wand – Harry’s wand – and Harry managed to give his arm one more feeble tug before the world turned dark.


End file.
